Monday, October 31, 2011

Mcdonald's annual limited period only McRib is available again until November 14. To help promote the burger the company has released a Facebook game The Quest for the Golden McRib.

The Quest for the Golden McRib uses Google Maps to allow players to search for one of ten virtual golden McRibs which are hidden in various McDonald's restaurants around the world. The game is available as a Facebook game, in which you have to select a McDonald's restaurant from a Google Map and then complete quests and unlock clues, in order to find one of the golden McRib's.

As well as requiring players to select restaurants from Google Maps the game features a number of Google Maps Street View scenes between each quest.

Juntos! is a neat events finder and organiser application for Facebook.

Using the application it is possible to find all sorts of events that are happening around your location. Alternatively if you planning a vacation or visiting another town or city you can use Juntos! to search for events at your destination and refine the results shown by date.

Juntos! can also be used to share and promote your own events. If you share an event with Juntos! the event will appear on your Facebook events page and on the Juntos! application.

College Humor has created a series of mock Google Maps that give Halloween directions for all the stages of your life.

The maps start with Halloween directions for your early childhood and end with your adult years. Step 7 in the early childhood Halloween directions should prepare you for a lifetime of Halloween disappointments,

"7. Old Mr. McCafferty gives you sugar free candy. Wonder why old people even exist."

Forget about Snowtober tomorrow is all about Movember, when men around the world put aside their razors and start growing moustaches in order to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health.

If you want to get involved in this year's fund-raising event then you can find out what is going on around you on the Movember Google Map. The map shows all the Movember events taking place around the world and the locations of the top fund-raisers.

RateMyArea.com is a crowdsourced Google Map that can be used to find, review, share and discuss businesses and locations in your local area.

Users of RateMyArea.com can find the best places and events in their area based on the reviews of other users. Searching the map simply involves defining what you want to search and where, for example 'pizza' in 'New York'. Results are then displayed on the map and in the map sidebar.

AustroZoom.at wants to be your one stop map for Austria. The application uses Google Maps to provide access to over 522,000 Austrian business locations, localised weather information, route planning and much more.

It is possible to find business locations (such as local restaurants) by using the categorised links beneath the map. The slide menu at the side of the map provides links to the many other functions provided by this Google Map.

Then came the Google Maps Typewriter, an application that lets you type in words and see them represented with, yes you guessed it, letters of the alphabet found on Google Maps.

Now we have the Google Earth Clock! Yes, it's a digital clock assembled from satellite views of Earth. The Google Earth clock uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to show the current time. Just load up the page and watch as the clock loads different Google Earth views so that it always shows the current time.

Find Parks is a directory and review site of Holiday Parks in the UK. Britains who are looking to book their annual holiday can use the Find Park Google Map to find the hoiday park that best meets their requirements.

The map shows the locations of UK holiday parks and can be searched by a number of categories. Users can refine the results shown on the map by the facilities provided by the park, company provider and even search for parks that are within selected distances of a beach.

Banff - Pet ConnectIn the Town of Banff, Alberta, Canada cats and dogs are required to be licensed. In return for paying a yearly license fee the town provides a pet collar tag and some additional services, like the town's lost pet page.

If someone finds a lost pet that’s wearing a Town of Banff pet tag, they can visit the lost pet page and enter the tag number in the Town of Banff Pet Connect Google Map. If the pet is registered the user will see the pet’s name, description, general location of the pet’s home and the contact number of the owner.

The Pet Connect map also saves the town money by reducing calls to the Town and Bylaw services. It means less time is spent returning pets and of course it reunites lost pets with their grateful owners.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

When I first reviewed the game back in June I was particularly impressed with the game's track creation and collision detection features. Thanks to Unit9.apps, the creators of the game (together with DDB Paris), we now have some clues as to how they put the game together.

In the MINImaps Case Study Unit9.apps have put together a step-by-step explanation of the game's creation from brief through to finished game. For example, the collision detection was created using image analysis of Google Maps to calculate and visualise the boundaries of the roads.

LaRoueVerte (the Green Wheel) is a French car pooling service that uses Google Maps to help users easily find or offer a car pool ride.

To find the nearest drivers willing to share a car journey the user simply needs to enter their starting point and destination. The route is then displayed on Google Maps and markers show all the nearest car pooling offers for the journey.

The details of the car pool offers are also displayed in the map sidebar with a handy meter guide to how closely the owner's journey matches the searched request.

The map is updated every five minutes to show the latest reported earthquake and you can use the time-line to explore earthquakes over the last seven days. It is also possible to refine the results shown on the map based on the different data sources.

Google Maps API applications that now load more than 25,000 basic maps or 2,500 maps that use the Styled Maps feature per day will now have to pay for the privilege.

Google announced in April that it would introduce usage limits for the free use of the Google Maps API. The usage limits that now apply to the Google Maps API are documented in the Google Maps API FAQ.

If your application exceeds the daily limit you can enrol for automated billing of excess map loads or purchase a Maps API Premier license.

The Google Geo Developers Blog says that "for very popular sites (the) Maps API Premier (licence) is likely to be a more cost effective option." Google also says that "non-profits and applications deemed in the public interest (as determined by Google at its discretion) are not subject to these usage limits."

Google claims that it is necessary to introduce these charges to secure the "long term future" of the Google Maps API and to ensure that "Google can continue to offer the Maps API for free to the vast majority of developers for many years to come."

For comparison the Bing Maps API has a limit of 125,000 sessions or 500,000 transactions in a 12 month period (for free usage). The OpenStreetMaps API continues to be free. The MapQuest Open JavaScript API is built upon map data from OpenStreetMap and is also free with no usage restrictions.

Google Maps is by far the most popular map provider on the Internet. A huge reason for the dominance of Google Maps is the ubiquity of Google Maps applications built upon the Maps API across the internet. I can't help feeling that Google has just encouraged a lot of developers to start looking at other Maps API's.

One very innovative user of the Google Maps API has already said that he will now be looking to use another map API. Ben Marsh, of the popular #UKSnow map, told .net,

"At peak times, Google's limits would make my own #UKSnow map stop working before dawn. It had 0.6 million page-views over the 2010-11 winter period, which I've worked out would have cost nearly £2,000 to keep running.

Based on this, and given it will likely receive the same amount of traffic this winter, I will be moving to another map provider."

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A couple of years ago we reviewed a great lost pet map on Google Maps Mania called Animal Finders. The map provides an excellent way for people to report lost and found animals in the Oxfordshire area in the UK.

The idea was so good I wondered how long it would be before someone created a lost pet map on a less localised basis. Well the wait is now over.

Lost Pet Atlas is a Google Map that allows anyone to report a lost or found cat or dog in the United States and Canada. As well as providing an overall map of north America Lost Pet Atlas has also created numerous more local maps for cities and towns throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Google Maps recently added a popular option to view a quick preview of your driving directions using the Google Earth browser plugin. The Google Earth tour was quickly dubbed 'helicopter view' by many users.

Perfilderuta is a website that lets you plan bicycling routes and it also features a 'helicopter view' of your routes using the Google Earth plugin.

Creating cycling routes with Perfilderuta is very easy. You just need to right click on the map once to set your starting point and once to set the destination (you also have the option to use main or secondary roads in your route).

The map will then display your route on the Google Map and tell you the distance, the maximum and minimum altitude of the route and the total ascent and descent on your route. Users can then view an altitude chart of the route or view a tour of the route in Google Earth.

Perfilderuta includes a lot of other very handy options, such as adding localities to the route (this will tell you how far it is to different towns and locations along your route). You can also download the route to use with a GPS unit.

Hacks / Hackers Buenos Aires has used Google Maps and Fusion Tables to create a series of maps to explore the results in the recent Argentinian Presidential and Legislative elections.

Elecciones 2011 examines the results, trends and the socio-demographic context of the 2011 elections in Argentina. The 'Resumen General' map shows the results for each presidential candidate in each electoral ward.

Other maps provide a choropleth view for the number of votes cast for each presidential candidate in each ward and allow you to examine the socio-demographic make up of each electoral ward.

One of the recurring themes in the novels of J. G. Ballard is the psychological effects of the environment on individuals. His novels, from the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun to Super-Cannes and Hello America, were also set in many locations throughout the world.

Ballard Geocoded is a Google Map of the locations in J.G. Ballard's fiction. If you click on a map marker you can read a short extract that mentions the location and find out the novel in which it is mentioned.

RateMyArea.com is a crowdsourced Google Map that can be used to find, review, share and discuss businesses and locations in your local area.

Users of RateMyArea.com can find the best places and events in their area based on the reviews of other users. Searching the map simply involves defining what you want to search and where, for example 'pizza' in 'New York'. Results are then displayed on the map and in the map sidebar.

RateMyArea.com also helps facilitate local social networks. Users can start a 'group' in a particular location and can start conversations, choose to invite other users and offer comments about the reviews and topics that other users have added.

Teleschirm is an Austrian website that wants to turn the tables on the pervasive users of CCTV by mapping where video surveillance is being used in public spaces. The site allows anyone to take a photo of a CCTV camera and enter its location on an OpenStreetMap or a Google Map.

Currently Teleschirm has active maps for all the major Austrian towns and cities. As well as the map view it is possible to view a list and photographs of the latest CCTV cameras to be posted to Teleschirm.

Monday, October 24, 2011

The Vancouver Sun has used Google Maps and Fusion Tables to map the ethnic make-up of Metro Vancouver.

In a series of Google Maps the newspaper has mapped the distribution of ethnic groups in the city. In each map the darker the colour on the heat map the more people from that ethnic group are living in the area.

Today in the UK over 1,000 new roadworks began, causing traffic delays for commuters throughout the country. Roadworks Online is using Google Maps to help road users avoid those delays.

The map brings together live information on roadworks from local authorities and utility companies to show what work is currently being undertaken, why and by which organisation. Different types of map markers indicate the extent of the disruption to traffic (lane closed, contra flow, road closed, traffic lights, boards etc.).

It is also possible to click on a map marker to get more information about a particular street work disruption, including (where available) the proposed length of the road works.

AustroZoom.at wants to be your one stop map for Austria. The application uses Google Maps to provide access to over 522,000 Austrian business locations, localised weather information, route planning and much more.

It is possible to find business locations (such as local restaurants) by using the categorised links beneath the map. The slide menu at the side of the map provides links to the many other functions provided by this Google Map.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Cellular Tower Maps uses Google Maps to display the approximate location of cell phone towers and the coverage of each cell on that tower.

The data for the maps is crowd-sourced and comes from users who have downloaded the apps, CellMapper for Windows Mobile, CellMapper for Android and CellMapper for BlackBerry. Cellular Tower Maps works worldwide and it is possible to view cell coverage maps for specific towns and for individual cell phone networks.

Everything about the Het Amsterdam van Anne Frank time-line is beautifully realised, including its use of static and interactive Google Maps.

The time-line explores the history of Amsterdam before and during German occupation in World War II. The time-line includes excerpts from Anne Frank's diary alongside historical photographs and videos of Amsterdam during the occupation.

Safecast was created one week after this year's Japanese earthquake in order to build a radiation sensor network of static and mobile sensors around Japan.

So far Safecast has collected over 750,000 data points which they have made accessible through a number of useful Google Maps. The Safecast Map depicts a heat map of the radiation readings.

The National Wildlife Foundation's Nature and Event Finder is a great Google Map of the U.S.'s National and State Parks, Wildlife Areas, National Forests and much more.

Users can search for their nearest wildlife points of interest and events by location and even define the radius they wish to search within. The advanced search options allow users to search the map by category or by type of event.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

A diya is a small light or lamp. During Diwali or 'the festival of lights' diyas are lit to signify the triumph of good over evil. Light a Diya allows anyone to light a virtual diya at the home of a loved one to help wish them a happy Diwali (Diwali is on Oct 26 this year).

The application uses Google Maps to allow users to search and find the address of the home where they wish to light a virtual diya. It is also possible to send the recipient of your virtual diya a personal message, either using Facebook connect or via e-mail.

The DC Street Tree Map uses data from the Urban Forestry Administration with Google Maps to show trees that they have planted and maintain in Washington DC.

Five different map markers have been used to differentiate maples, oaks, elms, sycamores and others. If you click on a marker you can view details such as the tree's height and the date it was planted. The information windows also coantain a link to view the tree in Street View.

This blog is almost exclusively about Google Maps, so other mapping platforms have to release something very special to get a mention here. I think we can say that Nokia Maps in WebGL is something very special indeed.

Last week Google released Google Maps in WebGL (if you haven't seen the future of Google Maps yet then open up Chrome 14+ or Firefox 8+ and click the "Want to try something new?" link in the left-hand sidebar).

Nokia has now released their own WebGL map. You will need the latest version of the Chrome browser to view the map. The map features 3D terrains and buildings with full zoom, pan, and tilt - with no plug-ins. All-in-all this has to be one of the most impressive uses of WebGL yet.

I wonder how long we will have to wait for the Google Earth WebGL version?

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Treshr lets you find and give away free stuff with a little help from Google Maps.

Using Treshr it is very easy to find stuff, just enter what you want and your location and you will be shown what is available on a Google Map (pro-tip: just enter a location to find all the free stuff being given away near you).

If you can't find what you want then you can even create a wanted list and get notified if the item gets added in your area.

In Brazil the Street View trike has been hitching a ride on a number of boats to capture imagery of the Amazon. In Canada and Switzerland the Street View camera has been mounted on snowmobiles to capture Street Views on piste.

Now, in Switzerland, the Street View trike has been attached to the front of a huge and powerful locomotive to capture Street View imagery of the Rhaetian Railway. The rail journey from Albula and Bernina has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites since 2008 and soon we will all be able to experience this beautiful journey via the magic of Street View.

If you can't wait for the new Street View imagery to appear on Google Maps you could have a look at this video map of the Glacier Express that I created a few years ago (and miraculously still seems to work). An even more impressive video map is the Trans Siberian Express map produced by Google (from Moscow-Vladivostok).

Or you could check out this video of the Street View trike in action on the Albula and Bernina line.

Everything about the Het Amsterdam van Anne Frank time-line is beautifully realised, including its use of static and interactive Google Maps.

The time-line explores the history of Amsterdam before and during German occupation in World War II. The time-line includes excerpts from Anne Frank's diary alongside historical photographs and videos of Amsterdam during the occupation.

If you click on an entry in the time-line it will open in a lightbox style window. Most of the entries are geo-located using a a static Google Map. If you click on the static map a larger Google Map will open to show the entry's location in Amsterdam.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Isochrone maps show you how far you can travel from a given location in a set time. The Isochronous Application uses Google Maps to help you work out how far you can travel from any location in any amount of time.

The application allows users to select a location, a time and the mode of transport (car, on foot or by bike). The map then displays a polygon on the map showing where you could travel in the defined time.

Zeitsprung uses historical photographs from the Weimar city archives to allow users to see how the German city has changed over time.

The site uses a jQuery slider control that allows the user to compare a historical photo with a photograph of the same view today. The photos can be browsed by location with the help of a Google Map. Alternatively it is possible to organise the photos by date or by title.

CrashMap is a Google Map of all UK car crashes for the last six years.

CrashMap uses data collected by the police about road traffic crashes occurring on British roads where someone is injured. Incidents are plotted to within 10 metres of their location. The map therefore provides a great guide to accident black spots.

It is possible to search the map by location and to refine the results to show just fatal, serious or slight incidents or the results for a single year. To view details about individual car crashes users have to register and buy credits (urgh!).

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The National Wildlife Foundation's Nature and Event Finder is a great Google Map of the U.S.'s National and State Parks, Wildlife Areas, National Forests and much more.

Users can search for their nearest wildlife points of interest and events by location and even define the radius they wish to search within. The advanced search options allow users to search the map by category or by type of event.

If you click on a map marker you can view a review of the wildlife event or point of interest selected and view information such as the address, driving directions and site's web address.

Roaming Hunger has created a number of Google Maps to track the real-time locations of food trucks in a large number of U.S. cities.

The food trucks are mapped based on tweets by the truck owners and by published calendars. If you click on a food truck's map marker you can get details about the hours it will be present at the current location.

The tour seems to still be a work in progress but already features some great custom Street Views of the 'Little Tower of Drienerlo' (pictured) and some Street Views that go inside the campus buildings.

The 'Little Tower of Drienerlo' is an art work by Wim T. Schippers which depicts the top of a church tower, giving the impression that a church lies at the bottom of the university pond.

Iceland in Maps is the first series of Google Maps applications that we have featured from the Republic of Iceland.

The website is an interesting introduction to the geography and island of Iceland and features a number of Google Maps. The series includes maps showing the populated areas of the country, protected areas and national parks, and even a map that allows you to compare the size of Iceland by superimposing the island on top of other countries.

Iceland in Maps also contains a number of maps examining the interesting geology of the country. This includes maps of the country's volcanoes, geothermal areas and glacier access.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Safecast was created one week after this year's Japanese earthquake in order to build a radiation sensor network of static and mobile sensors around Japan.

So far Safecast has collected over 750,000 data points which they have made accessible through a number of useful Google Maps. The Safecast Map depicts a heat map of the radiation readings. It is possible to select individual squares on the map and view the average readings.

Safecast have been driving across Japan in order to take radiation level readings. The data form each trip can be viewed on its own Google Map. The Safecast trips maps can be searched by location. In addition Safecast are aggregating radiation data from government and other sources. This data can be viewed on the Aggregate Map From All Sources.